Cablevision, the fifth-largest U.S. cable-television
provider by subscribers, sued Dec. 6 claiming Verizon was using
outdated information. The ads ran their course Dec. 17 and
Verizon will have new ads sometime in the future, company
spokesman William Kula said.

“Cablevision and Verizon have reached an agreement to
resolve the dispute without further need for litigation,” Kula
and James Maiella, a Cablevision spokesman, said in separate
phone interviews yesterday. They declined to disclose terms of
the settlement.

A hearing had been scheduled for yesterday before U.S.
District Judge Joanna Seybert in Central Islip, New York, on
Cablevision’s request to force New York-based Verizon to pull
the ads. The TV, radio, direct-mail and Internet spots running
in the New York area claimed that a “just released” Federal
Communications Commission study shows Bethpage, New York-based
Cablevision delivers at most 59 percent of its advertised speeds
during peak hours, according to the complaint.

The FCC report from August referred to tests performed in
March, and Cablevision said it has upgraded its system since
then. On Dec. 5, the FCC said in a blog post that Cablevision’s
results in the report were outdated and its performance had
improved, Cablevision said.

Verizon is Cablevision’s primary competitor for Internet
service in the New York metropolitan area, according to court
papers.

Verizon said in court papers that Cablevision’s request was
unnecessary because it planned to stop saying that the FCC
report was “recent” and that Cablevision “currently”
delivers only 59 percent of advertised speeds.

The case is Cablevision Systems Corp. v. Verizon
Communications Inc., 11-cv-5934, U.S. District Court, Eastern
District of New York (Central Islip).

Facebook Lawsuit Against Ads Given Go-Ahead by U.S. Judge

Facebook Inc., the world’s most used social-networking
service, can be sued by people who claim showing advertisements
that their friends “like” violates a California law regarding
commercial endorsements.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose rejected
Facebook’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit on Dec. 16, ruling the
plaintiffs may pursue claims that the company’s sponsored ads
violate state law and are fraudulent. Koh granted Facebook’s
request to dismiss a claim that it unjustly enriched itself with
the sponsored ads.

Facebook earns revenue primarily through the sale of
targeted advertising that appears on members’ pages, including
so-called sponsored stories, which the Palo Alto, California-based company started Jan. 25. A sponsored story is a paid ad
consisting of another friend’s name and profile picture and
claiming the person likes the advertiser. The plaintiffs claim
it’s an unauthorized use of their names and likenesses and that
they deserve compensation.

The “plaintiffs have articulated a coherent theory of how
they were economically injured by the misappropriation of their
names, photographs and likeness,” Koh wrote.

“We are reviewing the decision and continue to believe
that the case is without merit,” Andrew Noyes, a Facebook
spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.

The case is Fraley v. Facebook Inc., 11-cv-01726, U.S.
District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose)

Lawsuits/Pretrial

JPMorgan Funds Claim $700 Million in Losses From Lehman

JPMorgan Chase & Co., fighting Lehman Brothers Holdings
Inc. over billions of dollars in claims and damages, is seeking
to recoup $700 million in losses suffered by fund affiliates on
investments in the defunct firm.

The affiliates, ranging from pension trusts to Highbridge
funds, lost the money on bonds and other investments with Lehman
entities, and have valid claims on the defunct firm, the bank
said in a Dec. 16 court filing. It asked a judge to overrule
Lehman’s objection to the claims and allow the funds to recoup
the losses by using some of the $8.6 billion in collateral that
Lehman deposited with the bank before it failed.

Lehman says the funds aren’t affiliates, “merely
investment vehicles” for JPMorgan clients who bore the losses,
and can’t use the collateral to repay themselves.

Separately, New York-based JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank,
is fighting a lawsuit by Lehman that alleges the lender helped
cause its 2008 collapse by demanding the $8.6 billion in
collateral. The bank also is defending $6 billion in claims that
Lehman objects to and arguing it acted properly in seeking
security for loans made during the credit crisis.

Lehman filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history in
2008, listing $613 billion in debt.

JPMorgan sued Lehman back after the $8.6 billion suit,
alleging Lehman defrauded its lender into making the loan.

The main case is In re Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.,
08-13555, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York
(Manhattan). The lawsuit is Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. v.
JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, 10-03266, U.S. Bankruptcy Court,
Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Formosa Plastics’ Wang’s Estate Disputed in Hong Kong Suit

Winston Wong, son of Formosa Plastics Group’s late founder
Wang Yung-ching, sued in Hong Kong to recover more than $4
billion in assets for the estate of his father, once Taiwan’s
richest man.

Defendants named in the suit include three of Wang’s half-sisters -- Susan, Sandy and Diana Wang -- as well as former
employees of Formosa Plastics -- Hung Wen Hsiung and Jao Chien
Fang, “who were entrusted to manage YC Wang’s personal
finances,” according to a press statement issued by Wong
yesterday.

The suit alleges that the defendants used a Hong Kong-registered company called Hua Yang Investment (H.K.) Ltd. to
“wrongly siphon off” assets, including an interest in a coal
power plant and a hotel in mainland China, from Wang’s estate.
Wang’s Taiwan assets were valued at $1.7 billion, Wong said in
the statement.

An independent global investigation has identified total
assets worth more than $17 billion, according to the statement.

Sprint filed separate lawsuits yesterday in federal court
in Kansas City, Kansas, against Time Warner Cable, Comcast,
Cable One Inc. and Cox Communications Inc. Overland Park,
Kansas-based Sprint claims the companies are using technology it
patented in the 1990s for transmission of voice data packets.

The companies “have realized the great value in this
technology and have misappropriated it without Sprint’s
permission,” Sprint said in each complaint.

The 12 patents include some that were asserted against
Vonage Holdings Corp., which agreed to pay $80 million to
license the technology after losing a 2007 trial.

Alex Dudley, a spokesman for New York-based Time Warner
Cable, said the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
John Demming, a spokesman for Philadelphia-based Comcast, also
declined to comment.

Rima Calderon, a spokeswoman for Cable One parent
Washington Post Co., said the Washington-based company doesn’t
comment on litigation. Todd Smith, a spokesman for Atlanta-based
Cox, declined to comment, citing the pending lawsuit.

Google Sued by British Telecom Over Mobile-System Patents

British Telecommunications Plc sued Google Inc., owner of
the world’s most popular Internet search engine, for allegedly
infringing six U.S. patents for mobile-device technology.

BT, based in London, is seeking a jury trial and
unspecified damages against Mountain View, California-based
Google, according to a complaint filed Dec. 15 in federal court
in Wilmington, Delaware.

“BT has invested heavily over the last 20 years,”
generating “numerous patents,” and Google’s products including
the Android operating system, maps, search, music and book
services wrongly “incorporate BT’s patented technologies,”
according to the complaint.

Last year, BT sued U.S. cable company Cox Communications
Inc. in the same court over four patents for transmitting data
over cable networks. A trial in that case is tentatively
scheduled for 2014, according to court papers.

“We believe these claims are groundless,” Jim Prosser, a
Google spokesman, said in an e-mailed message. He said the
company would defend against them.

The case is British Telecommunications Plc v. Google Inc.,
11-CV-1249, U.S. District Court, District of Delaware
(Wilmington).

MF Global Judge Considering Nine Lawsuits Against Corzine

Jon Corzine, MF Global Holdings Ltd.’s former chief
executive officer, is the defendant in nine lawsuits before a
federal judge in Manhattan that are seeking compensation for
losses from the company’s collapse.

The plaintiffs, including an electricians’ union, allege
that Corzine and other company officials made misleading
statements about MF Global’s financial condition before its Oct.
31 collapse. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero has been
combining the cases into one, saying they make similar claims
about similar facts and events, and he now has consolidated nine
of them, according to a court filing yesterday.

Andrew Levander, a lawyer for Corzine, didn’t immediately
respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the suits, which are
seeking class-action, or group, status.

Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey, and senior MF
Global officers touted the company’s internal financial controls
and liquidity levels in statements that were “materially
misleading or untrue,” according to a Nov. 3 complaint filed in
Manhattan federal court by Joseph DeAngelis on behalf of himself
and other MF Global shareholders.

DeAngelis also named Henri Steenkamp, the New York-based
company’s chief financial officer, and Bradley Abelow, its
president.

Corzine and MF Global also have been sued by former
employees and commodity customers. A trustee liquidating the MF
Global Inc. brokerage is looking for $1.2 billion or more in
money missing from commodity customers’ accounts. Corzine has
said he doesn’t know where the missing money is.

The main case is DeAngelis v. Corzine, 11-cv-7866, U.S.
District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

For the latest lawsuits news, click here.

Trials and Appeals

Health-Care Hearing at U.S. High Court Set for March 26-28

The U.S. Supreme Court said it will hear arguments on
President Barack Obama’s health-care law over three days, from
March 26 to March 28.

Releasing a schedule yesterday that has few, if any,
precedents in modern court history, the justices left room to
expand the 5 1/2 hours they already allotted for argument. The
high court generally hears arguments for a single hour in each
case.

The first day will center on the Anti-Injunction Act, a law
that one federal appeals court concluded prevents judges from
ruling until 2015 on the requirement -- also known as the
individual mandate -- that Americans either buy insurance or pay
a penalty.

The justices will use the second day of the hearings to
consider the central issue: the constitutionality of the
individual mandate. A group of 26 states, led by Florida, is
among those challenging the provision.

On day three, the court will hear arguments on whether
other parts of the law should be invalidated along with the
individual mandate. The justices also will consider the states’
challenge to a provision expanding the Medicaid program for the
poor.

The cases are National Federation of Independent Business
v. Sebelius, 11-393; Department of Health and Human Services v.
Florida, 11-398; and Florida v. Department of Health and Human
Services, 11-400, U.S. Supreme Court (Washington).

Occupy London Wins UBS Court Appeal, Fights St. Paul’s Eviction

Occupy London protesters who took over a vacant UBS AG
office building in London’s financial district won court
permission to appeal their eviction after a judge ruled they
weren’t given proper notice of a trial.

The bank’s notice to the protesters, in the form of a
document posted on the building and a text message sent to a
leader 45 minutes before a 10 p.m. hearing, was insufficient to
give the group time to prepare or determine how to participate
in the case, Court of Appeal Judge Timothy Lloyd ruled
yesterday.

There was “really no effective notice of the hearing at
all -- especially in circumstances like this, where a hearing
took place late at night,” Lloyd said. “There is at least a
compelling reason why permission to appeal should be granted.”

The court victory against Zurich-based UBS comes as the
protesters, who seek global economic-equality and claim the bank
behaves unethically, are in a separate trial to avoid being
evicted from their primary encampment outside St. Paul’s
Cathedral. More than 200 tents have clustered around the
building since the middle of October, inspired by the Occupy
Wall Street protest that has since been broken up by police.

“This ruling is a vindication of the right of everyone in
this country to due process,” Naomi Colvin, a spokeswoman for
Occupy London, said after the ruling. “These people labor under
the misconception that they can throw money at a problem; it’s
emblematic of what the Occupy movement is trying to combat.”

UBS’s press office in London didn’t immediately respond to
a request for comment.

Court Rejects Tool for U.S. Companies Battling Chinese Imports

Companies from steel to paper makers may lose a tool
they’ve used to fight undervalued Chinese imports after a U.S.
appeals court rejected the imposition of duties to offset some
foreign government subsidies.

U.S. law doesn’t let the Commerce Department levy duties on
goods from nations, such as China, that lack a market to set
prices, a U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington said yesterday in
a unanimous ruling. Congressional action is needed to give the
agency that power, the judges ruled.

The decision rejected arguments by Titan International
Inc., the top U.S. maker of off-road tires, Bridgestone Americas
Inc., a unit of Tokyo-based Bridgestone Corp., and the AFL-CIO
labor federation. It may take years for the companies to appeal
or press for legislation, said George Thompson, a lawyer at
Neville Peterson LLP in Washington.

The U.S. uses more than 300 anti-dumping and countervailing
duty orders to shield American-made goods, from honey to bedroom
furniture, against global competition it deems unfair and
damaging to U.S. companies. About half the orders target iron
and steel products.

The three-judge panel upheld a U.S. Court of International
Trade decision that found the Commerce Department action on
Chinese tires was illegal.

Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Justice Department,
which presented the U.S. case, declined to comment on the
ruling. A phone message for Joe Dorn, an attorney with King &
Spalding LLP representing Bridgestone Americas, wasn’t returned.
A spokeswoman for Representative Kevin Brady, who heads the
House Ways and Means Committee’s trade panel, said the Texas
Republican is reviewing the decision.

The case is GPX International Tire Corp. v. U.S.,
2011-1107, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
(Washington).

For more, click here.

For the latest trial and appeals news, click here.

Verdicts, Settlements and Pleas

Apple Wins Patent Case with U.S. Ruling Banning Some HTC Phones

Apple Inc. won a patent-infringement ruling that bans some
HTC Corp. smartphones from the U.S. starting next year,
bolstering efforts to prove that devices running Google Inc.’s
Android operating system copy the iPhone.

The U.S. International Trade Commission, in a review of a
judge’s findings in July, said yesterday that HTC is violating
one Apple patent related to data-detection technology and issued
a limited import exclusion order that takes effect April 19.

“HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones
soon,” Grace Lei, general counsel for Taoyuan, Taiwan-based
HTC, said in an e-mail. The six-member commission determined
that three other patents in the case weren’t infringed.

While less than what Apple sought, the ruling gives the
company its first victory in patent cases designed to slow the
growth of Android, which former Chief Executive Officer Steve
Jobs claimed “ripped off the iPhone.” Apple has one other case
against HTC, as well as complaints against Samsung Electronics
Co. and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., and is involved in more
than a dozen other cases before the trade commission.

“The battle between Apple and Android is going to
continue,” said Peter Toren, a patent lawyer with Shulman
Rogers in Potomac, Maryland, who has been watching the cases.
“I’m not sure this decision, the way it is, is enough to push
the parties to settlement. Apple doesn’t have the leverage of a
total exclusionary order.”

The list of affected products and a full reason for the
commission’s decision, which is subject to appeal and a
presidential review, wasn’t immediately made public. Apple’s
original complaint named HTC’s Nexus One, Touch Pro, Diamond,
Tilt II, Dream, myTouch, Hero and Droid Eris.

Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, declined to discuss the possibility of a
settlement. She repeated the company’s position that
“competition is healthy, but competitors should create their
own original technology.”

Representatives from Google had no immediate comment.

The ruling is the first definitive decision in the dozens
of patent cases that began to proliferate in 2010 as smartphone
makers battle over a market that Strategy Analytics Inc. said
increased 44 percent last quarter from a year earlier to 117
million phones worldwide. HTC, the second-largest maker of
Android phones, used its partnership with Google to help
transform itself from a contract manufacturer founded in 1997 to
the biggest U.S. smartphone seller in the third quarter.

The case is In the Matter of Certain Personal Data and
Mobile Communications Devices and Related Software, 337-710,
U.S. International Trade Commission (Washington).

For more, click here.

Ex-Deutsche Bank CEO Pays $456,000 to End Trial Over Kirch

Former Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Rolf Breuer
agreed to pay 350,000 euros ($456,000) to settle an attempted
fraud case over testimony he gave in 2003 in a suit brought by
Leo Kirch.

The Munich Regional Court ended the criminal trial
yesterday after lawyers for both sides told the judges they had
reached a deal. The presiding judge in the case, Anton Winkler,
called for a settlement last week.

“We were permanently rotating between ‘maybe he did know
more’ and a potential acquittal, so it’s reasonable to end the
case now,” Winkler said when announcing the ruling. “Even if
we would have found guilt in this case, it would have been at
the very lowest level required for a conviction.”

Kirch, who died in July, was once one of Germany’s biggest
media tycoons and pursued civil lawsuits against Breuer, 74, and
Deutsche Bank seeking at least 3.3 billion euros. The lawsuits,
which continue after his death, claim Kirch’s company failed
after Breuer questioned its creditworthiness in a 2002 Bloomberg
TV interview.

The Kirch litigation has spawned a separate criminal probe
this year by Munich prosecutors over testimony Breuer gave in
February in another Kirch case. Current Deutsche Bank CEO Josef
Ackermann, chairman Clemens Boersig and former board member
Tessen von Heydebreck are also under investigation. Deutsche
Bank has denied wrongdoing by any of its executives.

The former executive didn’t admit any liability under the
settlement, which ends one of the numerous cases the Kirch
litigation prompted. Prosecutor Christiane Serini said the trial
developed in a way that made predicting the outcome difficult,
prompting her office to agree to settle. Breuer’s attorney, who
had sought an acquittal, said the agreement spares his client
the burden of additional months of trial. Breuer himself
declined to comment.

Clay Capital’s James Turner Pleads Guilty in Insider Case

James F. Turner II, the chief investment officer of hedge
fund Clay Capital Management LLC, pleaded guilty to his role in
an insider-trading scheme that prosecutors said made more than
$2.5 million in illicit profits.

Turner, 44, admitted yesterday in federal court in Newark,
New Jersey, that he illegally traded in shares of Autodesk Inc.,
Moldflow Corp. and Salesforce.com Inc. Turner said he got tips
from Scott Vollmar, his brother-in-law and a director of
business development at Autodesk, and from Scott Robarge, a
manager at Salesforce.com.

Turner pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud
before U.S. District Judge Dennis Cavanaugh. Vollmar and Robarge
previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities
fraud, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Kelly.

Joseph Bush, Turner’s attorney, declined to comment after
the plea hearing. Turner was released on $300,000 bail.
Cavanaugh set sentencing for April 16.

The case is U.S. v. Turner, U.S. District Court, District
of New Jersey (Newark).

Fraud Settlements in U.S. Government Cases Exceed $3 Billion

The amount the U.S. obtained in cases involving fraud
against the government held steady at about $3 billion in fiscal
year 2011, which ended Sept. 30.

The recoveries under the False Claims Act included $2.4
billion in fraud involving federal health care programs,
Assistant Attorney General Tony West, who heads the Justice
Department’s civil division, said at a briefing yesterday in
Washington.

Most of the cases resulting in recovered funds were brought
to the government by whistle-blowers, according to the Justice
Department. Whistle-blowers can pursue fraud claims under the
act on behalf of the federal government and then share in any
recovery.

The Justice Department has recovered $8.7 billion under the
False Claims Act since January 2009, the largest-ever three-year
total, West said.